The Leicestershires beyond BaghdadThompson, Edward John
History
The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad
Thompson, Edward John
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Iraq
Before noon Wilson asked me to take charge of the aid-post. Dobson
remained with me; Wilson and Whitehead went up to the wall and
established a new A.P. With me were left many stretcher-cases. In the
confused character of the ground my place quickly developed into an
independent aid-post, and, in addition to receiving a stream of
walking cases, methodically passed down by Wilson, had some hundred and
thirty wounded, including Turks, who had no other treatment than such
as Dobson and I knew how to give. I had never bandaged a man before,
but my hands grew red to the elbow. Dobson worked grandly. As far as
possible I left our own men to him, and dressed wounded Turks, of whom
seventy were sent in late in the afternoon. This was on the _fiat
experimentum in corpore vili_ principle, as my fingers were unskilled,
and yet the work was very great.
About noon a gun was heard on the left bank of the river. Shrapnel
burst 'unpleasantly close,' says Hasted, 'to our front line. More
followed, and, after bracketing, seemed to centre about two hundred and
fifty yards in front of us. We then realized that General Marshall's
Column had joined in, supporting us with enfilade gunfire; we were
unable to see their target, and could see nothing of the enemy
trenches. We could make out single occasional shivering figures moving
laterally in the mirage. One Turk was seen throwing up earth, standing
up now and then to put up his hands to us. We tried him at ranges of
three hundred to twelve hundred yards, but did not even frighten him;
observation was absurdly difficult. Firing slackened down, but on the
left, out of sight in a depression, we could hear the 56th engaged.'
As Hasted remarks, it seems incredible that our men lay from 11 a.m.
till 3.30 p.m. within three hundred yards of the enemy's trenches. Yet
such is the fact.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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